Daisy here is some bio on Ayn Rand, she was an interesting individual, who understood how wonderful ...

timon_phocas comments on Sep 26, 2020:

Ayn Rand was a seminal author and thinker behind the rise of modern American conservatism. I remember reading her books in high school. They were bold statements of the moral superiority of capitalism and individual achievement. Not only that but they described evil of collectivism. They were a startling contrast to the artistic culture of the times. Ayn Rand was virulently athiest. Her entrepreneurial protagonists relentlessly competed for advantage without relying on the government or cheating, because, ah, well, because they would never stoop to such a thing. I gradually came to realize she was saying entrepreneurial giants adhered to a transcendent moral value without a transcendent moral authority. And that's where I left her. Almost every entrepenurial giant in American history used the government to garauntee profits or restrict competitors. We live in an age of entrepreneurial giants today and they act the same as they did in the Gilded Age. So Ayn Rand is something of a mixed blessing. She was absolutely right in her assessment of the moral superiority of capitalism over collectivism. Her vision of a morally superior sub-species of entrepreneurial giants, meh.

Many people erroneously believe that YHWH, the Sovereign Creator, ordained the federal Constitution ...

timon_phocas comments on Sep 23, 2020:

Aw no! Next you'll be saying the NFL Sunday Package isn't divinely inspired, beer and nachos aren't a balanced diet, and the Passover isn't a quarterback's favorite offensive tool (to say nothing of all those Hail Marys). This is a grotesque failure of your Sunday School Teachers...

Let’s get real here.

timon_phocas comments on Sep 21, 2020:

I don't disagree with the assessment of RGB's hard left precedents. And yet.. Winston Churchill, in a speech before Parliament, said of Gen. Erwin Rommel, "May I say across the havoc of war, a great general." If a great man, in the midst of a titanic war, can acknowledge the qualities of an enemy general, so can we.

Do your neighbors scare you?

timon_phocas comments on Sep 21, 2020:

Nope. I live in a Hispanic neighborhood. They're good people. They mind their business, and we mind ours

Trump’s gene comments ‘indistinguishable from Nazi rhetoric’, expert on Holocaust says | The ...

timon_phocas comments on Sep 21, 2020:

So Trump praises Scandanavian pioneers and that makes him a Nazi? I am descended from Norwegian immigrants on my mother's side. I even had a couple Norwegian bachelor farmers as uncle's. Does praising my Scandahoovian ancestors make me a Nazi?

Bidenism of the day.

timon_phocas comments on Sep 21, 2020:

Three orders of magnitude? Rounding error....

“This is the business we’ve chosen.

timon_phocas comments on Sep 21, 2020:

The difficulty with a philosophy of "all's fair in love and war," is that eventually somebody decides that every activity fall into one of those catagories.

A dying wish ??? Bouaaaaaaaahahahahaha.. Who wrote this ? [youtu.be]

timon_phocas comments on Sep 20, 2020:

If her last wish before slipping into eternity was about politics, then her last wish was vain and shallow.

White the FBI is bleating about the threat of 'White Supremacy', BLM terrorists continue to murder.

timon_phocas comments on Sep 20, 2020:

This judgement is based on the massacres perpetrated by white racist nuts at synagogues, in the WalMart massacre in El Paso, in the New Zealand mosques and the Norway massacre. These are widely separated and uncoordinated acts by scattered online sociopaths. But they've killed scores of people. Antifa and BLM are active, coordinated networks. Their goal is destruction of the US. Their actions are calibrated to be part of a hybrid revolutionary war. Not quite revolutionary enough to trigger the the full weight of government reaction. Revolutionary enough to trigger outrage.

Daily in Christ by Neil T.

timon_phocas comments on Sep 20, 2020:

We will need Him as Rock and Deliverer in the next few months. We need to cling to Him as the world dissolves into chaos. God give us strength.

Obama Suggests Delay of Ginsburg Replacement Until After Election

timon_phocas comments on Sep 19, 2020:

The Blessed Saint Barry was **against** election year nominations when he was a Senator and a Republican president would make the nomination. The Blessed Saint Barry was **FOR** election year nominations when he was president and a Democrat was making the nomination. That's the only principle the Blessed Saint Barry follows.He would have ignored a similar deathbed wish if Antonin Scalia had made it.

As If the Stakes Weren't High Enough "Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the enigmatic, longtime Supreme Court ...

timon_phocas comments on Sep 18, 2020:

Almost every projection of the election says it will end up in the Supreme Court. This gives us the opportunity to tilt the Court in a firmly conservative direction just in time for those messy battles.

Daily Dose of Europe: Paris' Sainte-Chapelle - by Rick Steeves Notre-Dame has been on ...

timon_phocas comments on Sep 17, 2020:

Beautiful, gorgeous, a masterpiece of art and worship. Thank you.

Sorry, but Ben got this all WRONG.

timon_phocas comments on Sep 17, 2020:

Good gosh, this generation of Dem politicians is so slow. I'm no rhetorical genius, but even I thought of an answer to Colbert's question. "Debates are like verbal boxing matches. You throw a lot of punches. Muhammed Ali threw a lot of punches at people he basically liked; because that's how you win. George HW Bush called Reagan's proposals 'voodoo economics,' but he served Reagan for 8 years. That's just part of American politics."

Joe Biden Gaffes Collection [youtu.be]

timon_phocas comments on Sep 16, 2020:

Part of me wants to laugh uproariously. Comedians made careers parodying politicians making mistakes like this. But it's real in this campaign. Part of me is appalled. I'm watching a man humiliate himself beyond remedy. Who are the heartless people allowing him, encouraging him to destroy whatever tatters of dignity he has left? Part of me is utterly dismayed. What kind of amoral machine would shove this man into the most responsible position in the world?

This is from a comment I made to a great article on the website Wrongspeak.

timon_phocas comments on Sep 15, 2020:

I have a modest proposal. Let young women carry firearms. If a man or men try to rape her, let her shoot them. I'm willing to bet after fifty to a hundred men are shot by ladies, they'll figure out the game's not worth the candle.

A new study using the Hubble Space Telescope suggests that we understand dark matter even less than ...

timon_phocas comments on Sep 15, 2020:

The article is entirely correct about our not understanding dark matter. When we first got 2.5 to 5.5 meter telescopes we got our first views of galaxies. Astronomers took photos and counted stars and then estimated masses and orbits of the stars. Their estimates could not support gravitationally stable galaxies, so they assumed there had to be dark matter providing extra mass. "Dark matter" simply meant something that wouldn't show up on a photographic plate. Then we discovered radio astronomy and found that even clouds of gas at nearly absolute zero produced radio waves. They searched for radio signatures of dark matter and found none. At that point, if there was dark matter it was unlike any other matter in the universe. But it had to exist because it was the only thing making the gravitational equations work, so it became dogma. We've spent billions of dollars searching for dark matter. It's been fruitless. Perhaps we should reexamine our fundemental assumptions instead.

"LOOKING FOR A GIRLFRIEND SO I CAN GET A GREEN CARD."

timon_phocas comments on Sep 13, 2020:

We'll, at least he's honest...

I need to ask a serious question to the Christian members of this group: Do you still believe in ...

timon_phocas comments on Sep 12, 2020:

Howdy @AlpacaLunch, Thanks for asking. A long time ago I attended an astronomy 101 class. The first lecture included an explanation that all constellations were optical illusions. The stars weren't close to each other, they just lined up that way in our sky. Every constellation but two, and those two were the Pleiades and Orion. The Pleiades because they were formed together in a cluster and they're gradually drifting apart. Orion is a group of stars formed together in a parallel arm of the galaxy. It will always look the same because our relative positions always stay the same as we rotate around the galactic core. Six to eight months later I was reading Job and in chapter 38. 31¶“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, Or loose the cords of Orion? In one hand it is standard Hebrew poetry, with constasting imagery in stately cadence. On the other hand, the odds of writing those words randomly are pretty slim. Just selecting the only two constellations that aren't optical illusions is about 1 in 3,325 ( 2/88 X 1/87 = 2/7,656 ). Pretty stiff odds just for that. But the subsequent info about each are incalculable. No one will bind the chains of the Pleiades, they'll always be spreading apart. No one will ever loose the cords of Orion, because it will always look the same in our skies. Nobody on earth knew enough to speak the words of that couplet until well into the 20th century. They require knowledge we wouldn't know for thousands of years. Math, physics, chemistry, optics. We couldn't even make optically clear glass until the 1600s. That's just one verse, but it anchored my faith for many years.

Being forced to cover your hair or mask your face is not normal. [youtu.be]

timon_phocas comments on Sep 12, 2020:

@OneGodlessWoman, Sorrowful for your sorrow, for your feelings of loss, abandonment and rejection. I had a tumultuous childhood. My family were drug using criminals. There were many homes and much abuse before I was adopted into stable, loving family. Yet we never really leave those times behind.They followed me in dreams and nightmares. Decades later my wife saw the damage my childhood was still causing and forced me to confront it. One morning an insight came to me. I wanted my birth family to just accept me like my adopted family does. With that realization came a release of emotional pressure, like an abscess draining. I know you call yourself OneGodlessWoman, but I pray God gives you this kind of release.

From this group: ------------------------------------- TheMiddleWay So while I speak english,...

timon_phocas comments on Sep 12, 2020:

Howdy @TheMiddleWay, In the late 1800s many American cities had 2nd and 3rd ranked (by circulation) foreign language daily newspapers. At least one large mid-west city's first ranked daily was German. It wasn't always accepted gracefully, but we learned to move past it. Some people, a minority, say the same kinds of things today. We'll move past it.

Funny...Now they ban...Tear gas ?? [youtu.be]

timon_phocas comments on Sep 12, 2020:

Gee, just in time to ramp up festivities for the elections. And, of course, force the police to shoot in self defense.

More manipulation from Google.

timon_phocas comments on Sep 11, 2020:

Howdy @Edgework, Same here. Better search results, more privacy.

Did 9/11 and its aftermath change your view of the world?

timon_phocas comments on Sep 11, 2020:

We had an overwhelmingly strong military, stupendous wealth, and nearly absolute information dominance. We thought we were invulnerable. We were, if somebody attacked us with military forces. But we weren't attacked with mlitary forces. We were attacked by someone who looked at us like a termite looks at a wooden fort. Collapse the barracks and nobody can rush out to defend the walls. Collapse the gun platforms and nobody can fire the cannon. We are a complex, interconnected society. Blow up a few dozen electrical transmission towers and and our power transmission network goes down. Interrupt food distribution networks and mass starvation becomes grim reality. One thing 9/11 did is reveal how terribly fragile our society really is.

China carries out secretive launch of ‘reusable experimental spacecraft’ by Andrew Jones — ...

timon_phocas comments on Sep 11, 2020:

Single stage to orbit? Air breathing mother ship to launch from? Just what approach?

I know it's been a while.

timon_phocas comments on Sep 11, 2020:

Interesting archeological discoveries on this subject: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archeologists-sodom-and-gomorrah-literally-destroyed-by-fire-and-brimstone

Something I would like to ask.

timon_phocas comments on Sep 10, 2020:

Same here. I guess the US Mints have been shut down for the pandemic. Just a guess.

India captures Chinese camp in Himalayas [youtube.com]

timon_phocas comments on Sep 10, 2020:

Good info about a remote, little understood conflict. Thank you.

Hello! Apologies if this is a vague question, but how can you be certain there is a God, and he is ...

timon_phocas comments on Sep 9, 2020:

Howdy @Tati, Interesting question. First of all, logic provides no unquestionable path to God. Logical does not mean truthful, it just means that an argument is internally consistent. That's probably why I never found, "sheweth him thy syllogism and he certainly shalt believe." Not in my Bible, anyway. Maybe it's in the book of Hezekiah... (sorry, inside joke). Ask a hundred Christians why they believe and you'll probably get three-hundred different answers. I would suggest you read the Bible and see if it explains the world. See if it matches ancient history. See if it depicts people, "warts and all." Even the heroes. That's a difference between real and fairy tales. Lastly, I leave you with this from the Bible (not from the book of Hezekiah, but Hebrews 11). Whoever goes to God must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

How are you doing under Covid lockdown?

timon_phocas comments on Sep 8, 2020:

It's mostly an annoyance. We keep boxes of disposable masks in our cars, in our pockets, by our chairs. We're always going back to the car to grab some before going into a store. They're mostly useless, but they allow the politicians to say they're "doing something."

Are you concerned that there will be a coup if Trump wins?

timon_phocas comments on Sep 7, 2020:

You speak my nightmare. I hope and pray it is not so. Dick Morris said Chief Justice Roberts will decide this election. https://www.dickmorris.com/it-will-all-end-up-in-the-courts-lunch-alert/ The military will not intervene while it's in the courts

Trump is a hero!!!! [facebook.com]

timon_phocas comments on Sep 7, 2020:

FB has shut down the link. Another reason why I abandoned that leftist propaganda outlet.

Los Angeles County hits 121 degrees during oppressive heatwave, a record [foxnews.com]

timon_phocas comments on Sep 7, 2020:

So what. It gets up to the low 120s in Redding, the middle and high 120s in the high deserts.

When AOC came on the scene I would see posts about something she said.

timon_phocas comments on Sep 6, 2020:

It is sad on many levels. Joe Biden at his best was not that impressive. Yet somehow the DC atmosphere makes ordinary guys think they are destined for greatness. At 78 Biden is far from his best and everyone around him knows it. Why they drag him through so many humiliating situations is a cruelty I will never understand.

Are people more racist now than they were 20 years ago?

timon_phocas comments on Sep 6, 2020:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. Martin Luther King, Jr. When Martin Luther King Jr. uttered those words he changed our Constitution, or at least our understanding of it. It offered a way forward for people of every race. It had roots in the ideals of the the Christian Scriptures. It had roots in the ideals of our Declaration of Independence. It was a singularly American way forward. The United States is a nation of noble ideals. Those noble ideals, however, had executors who were all too human. And thus our history; both noble and ignoble, generous and venal, improving but never perfect. Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. said he had a dream. It became all our dream, for reasons both idealistic and very practical. Idealistic because it fits America's ideals. Practical because, given our history and ethnic mix, it is the only way forward. For as Ben Franklin said, we must hang together, or we shall most assuredly hang separately.

I think this is a good, drastic move.

timon_phocas comments on Sep 6, 2020:

A very positive step. Sudan has been cautiously moving away from Islamist police state and towards more democracy for a few years.

The savior. [youtu.be]

timon_phocas comments on Sep 5, 2020:

I don't care what color Jesus of Nazareth was. WHO he is matters, not what SPF he had to use at the beach.

The Transition Integrity Project— if that evokes fond memories of the integrity of the 2016 ...

timon_phocas comments on Sep 4, 2020:

Yep. if Biden wins in a landslide, then it will be a peaceful transition. Any other outcome will lead to riots and succession. Nice republic ya got here, it'd be just awful if something happened to it...

It's still a poor choice it seems.

timon_phocas comments on Sep 3, 2020:

Howdy @Naomi, 3rd parties in American politics are underappreciated. They prove the viability of ideas and platforms to the two major parties. For example, the ideal of an 8 hour work day with a forty hour work week came from Eugene V. Debs and the socialist party. They later became part of the Democrats' labor reforms. Ross Perot ran his campaign on balancing the federal budget in 1992. Newt Gingrich saw how popular it was and made it part of the Republican Congressional campaign in 1994. The American system seems to balance with two parties. There are times when that balance seems impossible. Around 1850 the Whig party disintegrated and was replaced by the Republican party. Slavery was an incandescently hot issue. The Whigs studiously avoided it, the people lost interest in them. The Republicans were formed to oppose slavery. This, in turn, inflamed the Democrats and a Civil War followed. We may be at another inflection point. The Democratic party has united itself to a disparite series of ecological, gender & race identity, and marxist movements. Those movements aim to destroy America itself. I don't think America will vote for rioters chanting "Death to America!" Then again, like Amos, I am not a prophet nor am I the son of a prophet.

Why are rich elites giving millions to the Biden campaign?

timon_phocas comments on Sep 2, 2020:

The Democratic Party is the party of Wall Street elites. They love crony capitalists, and their love is returned wholeheartedly. Real genius is rare, how many Steve Jobs or Elon Musks are there in a generation? People of lesser talent, however, can make money by insider deals. Cozy deals with the government make them possible.

The Grim Creeper showed up for a virtual townhall and took another stab at proving he’s in ...

timon_phocas comments on Sep 2, 2020:

Oops! Biden has seen Trump's shadow again. Time to go back into his basement...

Portland mayor plans to move after protests outside his home [youtube.com]

timon_phocas comments on Sep 2, 2020:

Poor baby. The riotous extremists he's been coddling for years don't like him any more. For that matter, neither do his neighbors... Hey kids, what time is it? **It's shadenfreude time!!!**

So, what do you think about this story?

timon_phocas comments on Sep 2, 2020:

Howdy @Naomi, Numbers chapter 12 is illuminating for this subject. 1¶Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married (for he had married a Cushite woman); Moses had a mixed marriage, for the Cushites were black Africans. Miriam and Aaron attacked Moses for this. It was more complicated, but that was the pretext. Moses refers the matter to the LORD. Moses, Miriam and Aaron stand before the LORD. He explains His special relationship with Moses and criticises Miriam and Aaron for attacking His consecrated servant. Then He strikes Miriam with leprosy. He heals her after seven days of quarantine outside the camp. If the LORD objected to mixed race marriages He could have said so. Since He did not object, and instead praised Moses as His uniquely faithful servant, we can assume He has no objection mixed race marriages.

Chelsea Clinton says she wants to erode her children’s white privilege over time.

timon_phocas comments on Aug 29, 2020:

Chelsea was brought up in the lap of pilfered peculations. She was born into the swamp, the offspring of two of the most corrupt politicians in history. To top it all off, she speaks politically correct pablum whenever she speaks. What a poser.

Black panther died ? ... That's awful... [youtu.be]

timon_phocas comments on Aug 29, 2020:

May his memory be a blessing. May he live in light eternal. Comfort to his family and friends.

SalenaZito: Kenosha Riots Could Matter in November.

timon_phocas comments on Aug 29, 2020:

I remember the situation in Fallujah back in 2004. The first battle of Fallujah was halted in mid stride because of the presidential campaign.The day after the election Marines closed the jaws and the 2nd battle of Fallujah started. I think after the election Trump will close the jaws, declare insurrection, federalize Guard units and stop the riots with overwhelming force. You're right about it costing more because of the delay.

‘The artist must train not only his eye but also his soul.

timon_phocas comments on Aug 29, 2020:

There is a piece down in Colorado Springs, an enormous painting where the artist portrayed the wall of a Colorado canyon in sunset. All browns and ochers, with red and orange highlights, black and brown veins show texture. The artist caught the gauzy diffraction of Colorado mountain sunlight. Very subtle. It's not so much beautiful as it is very, very impressive. It takes up a whole wall in a museum in Colorado Springs. The painting made me look at canyon walls differently, with some of the excitement I had when climbing them.

I finally agree with Black Lives Matter.

timon_phocas comments on Aug 28, 2020:

Go ahead and strike! I'll binge watch my collection of classics. Have a few hundred in the files.

Police charged the Antifa shield wall hard, not holding back on beating the rioters with batons ...

timon_phocas comments on Aug 26, 2020:

Those dumb, ignorant, LARPs*. They have a "shield wall." The Police just swarm around them and beat them from behind. What idiots. *Live Action Role Player

So I just asked this question on Quora.

timon_phocas comments on Aug 26, 2020:

Not only no, but hell no.

Jewish Enclave in the Soviet Union. [en.m.wikipedia.org]

timon_phocas comments on Aug 26, 2020:

There was a lot of ferment about a Jewish homeland when Birobidzhan was founded. I read about it decades ago. A blast from the past. Thank you.

Christian teacher facing execution in Syria after refusing to give school to Islamist group ...

timon_phocas comments on Aug 25, 2020:

Romans 8:36 As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."

Have thoughts on the DNC vs RNC (so far)?

timon_phocas comments on Aug 25, 2020:

I have watched both. The first night of the RNC was a series of home runs (for me, anyway). The patriotic themes are so refreshing after four years of America bashing.

The Battle Belongs to the Lord David addressing Goliath: "This day the LORD will hand you over to ...

timon_phocas comments on Aug 23, 2020:

Even so, give us the faith to fight our battles today.

I find it gunny getting a text from someone asking me why the bars are closed at 9pm.

timon_phocas comments on Aug 22, 2020:

Here in Colorado they put the statewide last call at 10:00 pm. At 9:50 pm customers order 4 or 5 drinks and then stay till midnite. It has no effect on the number of people in the bars. But the Gubnah can say he is **DOING SOMETHING** about the pandemic, by golly.

Breitbart: CNN's MJ Lee says a campaign aide said "It is just entirely not clear that we are ever ...

timon_phocas comments on Aug 22, 2020:

It makes me wonder if they've written off this election. If they're just going to just bank all the money they raise ...

I grew up in Indiana around guns, and I carried a gun sometimes while in the U.

timon_phocas comments on Aug 22, 2020:

Howdy @KeithThroop, I purchased an antique Russian rifle just after Obama was inaugurated. I bought it because I could purchase ammo for it in vacuum packed, 440 round cans. In 2015 I bought a pistol because I thought Hillary might get elected. Peter Stzrok wasn't the only one looking for an insurance policy. My wife is encouraging me to get a CCP and our Sheriff has lowered the fee to $52.00. not only that, but our church hosts CCP instruction by deputies. So yes, it's going around.

I was watching Tim Pool/TimcastIRL, and he had an interesting theory on what happened to the white ...

timon_phocas comments on Aug 22, 2020:

Like all totalitarian movements, and they need an enemy. They're willing to manufacture an enemy if need be. The neo- nazis are a miniscule fragment of a minority, but if they're willing to say "hail Trump" and give a stiff arm salute, they'll have enthusiastic TV coverage. Moreover, this way the MSM can excuse Leftist outrages by says they're only a reaction to the looming threat posed by fascists.

Thirty years ago, Romania solved their dictator problem. [youtube.com]

timon_phocas comments on Aug 22, 2020:

We were hosting a young lady from East Germany, an Ost Berliner, when Ceausescu was overthrown. I never thought I'd see the Iron Curtain destroyed. When Romania's Ploesti oil fields ran dry, Ceausescu borrowed billions to build factories. He wanted them to make cheap consumer goods to make up for oil revenue losses. Nobody bought the cheap consumer goods and the loans came due. Ceausescu simply put Romania on a starvation diet and sold the country's agricultural output to pay off the loans. Marines who served in the embassy in Bucharest reported corpses on the sidewalks every morning. City workers would come every day to dispose of them. All of this was enforced by the Securitate and Army. The revolution was a bitter fight between the the Securitate and the Army.

Discussion time my dudes. Do the LoTR Movies hold a candle to the books?

timon_phocas comments on Aug 21, 2020:

JRRT was a master of pacing and nuance. Those slow, beautiful moments allow you to see the thought lives of the characters, added depth to them. I think they make characters more dear to the reader. Thought lives are difficult, maybe impossible, to film. Peter Jackson, instead, concentrates on the fantastic, UNBELIEVABLE, **STUPENDOUS** to carry his movies. Mind you, there's a lot of that in JRRT's books, but the slower passages provide context and completion to them.

Thoughts on this one?

timon_phocas comments on Aug 21, 2020:

John Kasich, someone who couldn't even muster a majority in his home state primary. Someone who uses self-righteous preachiness to explain why he never acted on all the conservative goals he promised his electorate. Colin Powell is a man raised to the highest circles of power by Republicans. An ostensible Republican who hasn't endorsed or voted Republican for almost a generation. Give them to the party which has no creed, no moral center, just a hunger for power. Give them to the Dems

Joe Biden said he is an ally of the light.

timon_phocas comments on Aug 21, 2020:

II Corinthians 11:14 But I am not surprised! Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.

[theepochtimes.com] Fed Officials Warn CCP Virus Will ‘Weigh Heavily’ on US Economy

timon_phocas comments on Aug 21, 2020:

No screaming eagle. ya think?

Can you PLEASE change the word "cook" to something else?

timon_phocas comments on Aug 19, 2020:

Ah, the perils of English mixed with computerized autocorrect...

What The Hell is going on in Portland and why are we letting it go on

timon_phocas comments on Aug 18, 2020:

The political establishment in Portland tolerates riotous leftist mobs as a sign of needed progressive changes. https://youtu.be/O31VVqkU1mY

THE NEW TEN COMMANDMENTS There really is no destination.

timon_phocas comments on Aug 17, 2020:

"3. Thou shalt learn that there are no objective moral standards to abide by." Is that an objective moral value? If there are no objective moral values why should I follow this one?

Are you going to watch this week's Democratic National Convention?

timon_phocas comments on Aug 16, 2020:

I will watch any Joe Biden speech to see if he can stay on script for more than a minute. If he wiffs the speech he may cripple his campaign.

[youtu.

timon_phocas comments on Aug 16, 2020:

They're live action role players. In their fantasies they think they're Star Wars Resistance fighters. They've never suffered a real consequence in their lives. Prime contestants for a Darwin Award.

Is there a “Too Far” for a free speech site?

timon_phocas comments on Aug 16, 2020:

Can we have an island of reasonable discourse in an age of vituperation? Are there kinds of discourse too extreme in a site founded as a rejection of censorship? Good questions are often hard questions. I believe attacks on Jews as a culture or a religion are repellant. Then again, I come from a background where Jews were the custodians of God's revelations and the focus of His prophecies. Other people do not. So I dispute what I see as anti-Semitic assertions, state my arguments and move on. As Henry VIII's court stated, let the winds of doctrine blow, let truth and falsehood grapple in the field. We are not an intellectual monoculture. I appreciate this deeply. As a site founded in reaction to liberal censorship, we are generally conservative. Liberal and leftist users state their arguments openly here. This is important. I will complain if it descends into ad hominim or open obscenity.

2020 Election

timon_phocas comments on Aug 15, 2020:

I don't think we know. Polling data are are doubly skewed. First they under sample Republicans. In addition conservatives are inhibited from answering honestly for fear of ridicule and ostracism. The results are predictably... liberal. It is worthwhile to note that much polling is released to mold opinion, not reflect it. Lastly, the overwhelming culture of the news media is leftist. Like the pollsters, news media have decided to mold reality, not report it. Leftist molded poll results fed into leftist news organizations results in a steady stream of positive news about the Biden Campaign. Just like 2016, all that happy talk does not necessarily reflect reality.

Hearing some misguided, if well-intentioned, souls pushing Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, after ...

timon_phocas comments on Aug 15, 2020:

A bunch of retired socialist politicians in Norway vote on whoever is most exciting. They seem to have honored mistly vapid, empty suits in the last decades.

Photo of the Day: Removed Letterboxes piled up in Wisconsin, USA.

timon_phocas comments on Aug 15, 2020:

Letter volume has declined precipitously since the World Wide Web debuted. Thousands, tens of thousands, of mailboxes are continuously empty, but mail carriers have to stop and check them six days a week. That costs money. It wastes resources. The USPS has lost $79 billion over the last twenty years. It needs to be reorganized to fit the business it actually has. That way there will be more mail carriers to pick up ballots and fewer checking empty mailboxes.

I have been thinking about freedom, again.

timon_phocas comments on Aug 15, 2020:

Freedom is a thorny construct. Absence of constraint is an insuffient definition. Positive or negative? Achievement or license?

New Zealand Says It Will Put All New COVID Infectees & Their Family Members in “Quarantine ...

timon_phocas comments on Aug 15, 2020:

And that worked so well for Melbourne..

Does it matter that Kamala Harris is descended from a slave owner?

timon_phocas comments on Aug 15, 2020:

I don't think her adoring press will bring up the subject. I don't think it's an important issue for conservatives.

Donald Trump for the Nobel peace prize.

timon_phocas comments on Aug 14, 2020:

I imagine there's wailing and gnashing of teeth at the Ben Rhodes house.

CDC: Drinking methanol hand sanitizers poisoned 15, killed 4 NO SHIT [yahoo.com]

timon_phocas comments on Aug 14, 2020:

Darwin Award! Luckily for the contestants, the Awards Committee does not subtract points for lack of originality. Congratulations, they're extinct! On a more serious note, my Lebanese biology professor taught in universities in Arabia. All alcohol, even methanol, had to be locked up after every class, or the students would pilfer it for drinking. Kind of a cultural and religious Darwin Award.

I keep hearing about USPS sorting machines being removed.

timon_phocas comments on Aug 14, 2020:

Here's the reason. USPS mail volume is disappearing and they've lost tens of billions. Seventy-odd billion In the last twenty years.

The Trump impeachment hearings were initiated based on a falsified Russia collusion theory.

timon_phocas comments on Aug 14, 2020:

It means the Russia Collusion accusations are collapsing. The impeachment was about Ukrainian collusion...

NASA-Backed Space-Overalls Keep Astronauts Healthy in Microgravity [interestingengineering.com]

timon_phocas comments on Aug 14, 2020:

I read a fair amount about microgravity's effects on human bodies. The problems seemed daunting, maybe unsolvable. Perhaps advances like this are why people like Musk think space exploration is possible.

Honestly, I’m not even sure how to react.

timon_phocas comments on Aug 14, 2020:

Deeply disturbing. I think this is the background for another 1968/72 cycle. I pray that it is. After the election Trump can declare insurrection, crush the riots and imprison the perpetrators. Chicago rioters attacked and looted a Ronald McDonald House. If I was Trump, my next ad would say, "Is this the America you want? Where you can't even visit your sick child in a hospital without being terrorized by rioters?"

Five things to know about Kamala Harris (like that she's more liberal than 99% of the Senate?

timon_phocas comments on Aug 13, 2020:

Pragmatic: Ability to keep a straight face while constantly changing positions.

Will this result in reduced opposition to Israel within the Democratic Party? [timesofisrael.com]

timon_phocas comments on Aug 12, 2020:

Kamala Harris has no political principles.

So... what do you think about Kamala Harris?

timon_phocas comments on Aug 12, 2020:

Biden's virtual nomination was engineered by the Democratic party establishment. It's all virtual. Is there virtual smoke filling their virtual rooms? Kamala Harris is also an establishment favorite so her choice was similarly engineered. Her core political principles seem to be unusually flexible. There are wind socks with more rigid principles than Kamala Harris. She was an election winner in a state where Republicans never even get on a statewide ballot. Her polling numbers in Cali, however, were 7 to 8 percent before she dropped out of the nomination race. I think most eyes will be focussed Doddering Joe and his endless gaffes, not his running mate.

As expected, Sleepy Joe just selected the nightmare running mate - Kamila Harris, the woman who ...

timon_phocas comments on Aug 11, 2020:

Naked ambition, Politically Correct of course, but nothing more than naked pursuit of ambition in female form.

Should have gone with Oprah, more likable.

timon_phocas comments on Aug 11, 2020:

Kamala Harris was such a conventional choice. So predictable. So openly ambitious. A real poser.

Well, Kamala Harris is a Skeaze Ball .

timon_phocas comments on Aug 11, 2020:

A thoroughly conventional choice.

I recently learned a little about Native American slave holders.

timon_phocas comments on Aug 11, 2020:

Howdy @Naomi, Yes, slavery (like the rest of history) is more complicated and subtle than angry slogans tell us. Our history books have flipped from hagiography to excoriation in a generation. It seems like we entirely skipped over balance in our leap. We can establish a new balance. Slavery was terrible, the movement to abolish it was noble. Incessant Indian wars were terrible, but the settlers' sacrifices to build new lives and tame new lands was noble.

People say other people won't even notice when America stops being free, as they fail to notice it ...

timon_phocas comments on Aug 11, 2020:

Howdy @A1fredo, We did have a COVID a century ago. In 1918 we suffered through the Spanish Flu. The US had about a hundred-million people and we lost about a million of them. It was the height of our World War One effort, so it was covered up. A lot of our reactions to COVID are based on our memories of the Spanish Flu.

Are private security militias the future of public safety?

timon_phocas comments on Aug 11, 2020:

A guy who is old, fat and arthritic doesn't have much of a fighting chance in a Hobbesian world. Sure, I have arms and ammo, but any serious assault is inescapable. I believe the people don't want, and will vote against such danger to their lives and property.

So like most families, mine has that “racist” uncle.

timon_phocas comments on Aug 10, 2020:

My father-in-law was a hospitable jokester. He was an intuitive mechanic, a hard worker. He was generous He was also racist. If you got him on the subject, whole streams of epithets would gush out. So I wouldn't talk about those things with him. Oh BTW, he was a lifelong Democrat.

[breitbart.

timon_phocas comments on Aug 10, 2020:

Dang! "2+2=4 'reeks of white supremacist patriarchy.'" Now that's a line I never tried with my mom & dad during homework time. Don't think it would have flown with them. Probably would have earned another swat on the bottom.

Happy anniversary to Mikhaila! [facebook.

timon_phocas comments on Aug 10, 2020:

Good for you! Three down, forty-seven to go.

What does the lawsuit against the NRA mean for gun rights? [news.yahoo.com]

timon_phocas comments on Aug 9, 2020:

As far as I can tell, it means they'll take Trump's advice and move to Texas.

An atomic bomb was dropped in Hiroshima on Aug.

timon_phocas comments on Aug 9, 2020:

It became a necessity once the first one was designed

[foxnews.

timon_phocas comments on Aug 9, 2020:

Yep, Sally Yates' was doing a whole lot of ducking and weaving. When she was backed into a corner, however, she threw Comey under the bus.

Why did Trump Flip on Sessions? [youtu.be]

timon_phocas comments on Aug 8, 2020:

Sessions was a staunch Trump supporter in 2016. When he became Attorney General, however, he immediately recused himself from any control over the Russia Collusion investigation. Sessions is a fine southern gentleman. He was acting out a deep sense of honor when he recused himself. The Democrats were not honorable, however, and Sessions' honor allowed them to hamstring the administration for over two years. Sessions saw it as a matter of honor. At worst, a forgivable mistake. Trump saw it as a betrayal and Trump is not a forgiving kind of man.

WRETCHED GRETCHEN STILL HAS A PULSE At least her prospects to share the ticket with Hidin Biden ...

timon_phocas comments on Aug 8, 2020:

Well, at least she has electoral victories to her credit. Susan Rice has never run for anything, and her Miss Congeniality award is kind of shady.

India’s Pro-Nationalist & Pro-Hindu Stance Seems to Upset Muslims .

timon_phocas comments on Aug 8, 2020:

From Turkey. Hmm. My, how the pot calls the kettle black. All fascistic movements portray themselves as persecuted while persecuting minorities in their own grasp. Interesting to see this playing out in their propaganda.

I consider this a little disturbing .

timon_phocas comments on Aug 8, 2020:

Pakistan is a victim of their own paranoia. The military constantly stokes the fear of a conquering, avaricious India. The truth is India wants nothing to do with Parkistan's hot, stinking mess of corruption. Nevertheless, Pakistan needs advanced weapons to threaten their larger neighbor. China is the only one willing to provide them. For a price...